Well I’m back to the grindstone after spending 5 wine-filled nights in gorgeous Paris with my Mum, family friend Vicky, brother John and his girlfriend Hayley!  We had an absolutely amazing time and our breath was taken on oh so many occasions at the sheer magnitude of some of the amazing sights!  It really is unbelieveable when you actually stop and think just how long those monuments and statues have been there.

Our trip started off with the Easyjet flight from Newcastle to Charles de Gaulle Airport landing at approx 4pm on Thursday 13th August – Mum’s 59th birthday!  A shuttle then whisked us away to the fantastic loft apartment Vicky had found online for us – and it was EXACTLY how it was portrayed on the internet which was such a relief! Would’ve been nothing worse than us walking in and it being a total dive… but it wasn’t… it was awesome!

 Unfortunately something that wasn’t quite so awesome was that Mum had been struck down with a painful stomach bug the day before and was feeling like arse… so she lay down while the rest of us spent the first day scouting things out.  Took the Metro to Champs de Mars and saw the Eiffel Tour! Vicky got a bit emotional which set me off because I was already missing my Dad haha. We were a right pair!  After taking it all in we were waiting in line to see if we could pre-book tickets for the next day and come back with Mum (cos the queues were horrendous) and kept getting pestered by the local illegal souvenir sellers!  The trick is not to make eye contact with them otherwise you’re seriously screwed haha. Funniest thing happened then tho because all of sudden one or two of them started running for the trees of the park and we were like What the?… and then it was like a fricken stampede! And got even funnier when they went from the concrete to the dirt of the park because they created a huge dirt cloud haha and with them being dark it fully looked like an african stampede!  Then we see this French policeman on a bicycle hooning along at the rear and come to a cool-ass skid stop on the dust and it all became clear what was going on!  We were cracking up along with all the other masses of tourists, then we all clapped when the policeman cycled back through looking as cool as anything…. two mins later the buggers were poking their heads round from behind trees to see if the coast was clear which was funny to watch too.  Then we went for a walk through the gardens and had lunch at our first proper French cafe!  Wine & beer for everyone ordered in French of course and Vicky and I shared some pate – so good!  John then went and did a solo mission in Paris (translation : he went drinking haha) while Hayley, Vicky and I went on a ‘Cafe-Crawl’ and had some cocktails (mmmm MOJITO’s!) and did some people-watching. Maaaaaaaaaan did we see some sights! Somehow we found our way back to the apartment a few hours later – slightly toasted and slightly embarrassed that we’d done an unintentional ’Dine-and-Dash’ on the last cafe! Ok so maybe we were more than slightly toasted haha. 

Day Two Mum was feeling kinda better, so with the help of multiple Rennies + other medications Vicky picked up from the local Pharmacie, we hit the road and walked to where the action was! It took a mammoth effort on Mum’s part because she was feeling absolutely horrible but wanted to see the sights, so even though we had to stop a couple of times we finally got to Palais du Louvre and soon to follow was a definite breath-taking moment in the Musee du Louvre!  Now before I go on, if you wanna see some pics CLICK HERE… Walking through the Palais do Louvre to the actual Louvre Museum was abso-friggin-lutely amazing! The glass structure just looks so magnifico being surrounded by the Palais as the detailing on that is absolutely unreal.  So we sat there for a wee while next to the water pool (so hard not to put your feet in on such a hot day but not allowed!) and of course I had to take a photo of Paddington haha.

Then we crossed the road and got on a L’Open Tour Bus ,which we’d seen at the Eiffel Tower the day before, and started on the Paris Grand Tour – which was the main one of all the big sights. Basically the rest of the day was full of  either OMG’s or *GASP* or Holy Shit That’s Big or Wow That’s Amazing…. in between the multiple GOD IT’S HOT!  We had a grand time then got off for some lunch at about 2pm and by then I was knackered with the heat and Mum was feeling a bit crook so us two and Vicky got the Metro back to the apartment while John and Hayley went to go up the Arc de Triomphe and do some shopping.

Day Three we used the 2nd day of the bus tour ticket as basically a taxi to get us around haha. Did a different tour route and set our sights on going to Montmartre – an area of Paris renowned for it’s artists.  Vicky had heard of this place where all the artists gather in a market situation and we really wanted to take Mum there (seeing as she herself is an artist) so we stopped at Moulin Rouge haha and had some lunch to recharge, then hotfooted it up the hill to find these artists! Oh and find them we did – bloody hell was it crowded but I could see Mum was thoroughly enjoying it (despite still being sick).  Hayley and I both had guys come up and start randomly cutting out our silhouettes and it was amazing to watch them make this perfect profile of us in literally 1 min… with only two pieces of paper and a pair of scissors!! Oh of course then he wanted money for it haha.  It was really good tho so I got it – must take a photo and put it in the album actually….. Hayley egged John on to get their caricatures done which turned out to be really funny – Johns’ espeically was SO him – he better put it in a frame back in Blenheim!  After Vicky had stopped having her tonsil’s tickled by the French waiter Mohad (seriously random thing that happened!) we then headed back down the hill  to the tour bus again and back to the city.  Everyone but Vicky and I were ready to call it a day and go back to the apartment at that point so Vicky and I used up the last of the tour ticket and did a totally different tour of what I would class as Paris-everyday life, as it had none of the impressive sights really but you saw that it wasn’t all like the touristy centre.

Day Four we got up uber-early and squashed the 5 of is into a taxi for 4 (on the plus side the driver was petrified of being stopped by the cops so was driving fast and it was really cheap!) and Mum finally got to see the Eiffel Tower up close and personal!  Of course it didn’t open til 9 but we knew we’d have to get there early to avoid the queues… and avoid we did.  But did Paris help us out with a nice warm morning while we waited? Nope… we had the first chilly and foggy morning of our trip and on the worst possible day! We went up to the top of the tower and the views were amazing but would’ve been so much better if it’d been clear… but still… a chilly & foggy day up the Eiffel Tower in Paris is still better than a chilly and foggy day at work in Newcastle!  So with that done John and Hayley headed off on their own again while Mum, Vicky and I headed across the road to the river and got on a Batobus for a cruise up the River Seine!  Mum & Vicky have always wanted to see Monet’s Waterlilies so we did that and Mum got to indulge her artistic side again at the Musee de L’Orangerie (after scaring the shit out of Vicky & I by going super-pale and almost throwing up while we waited to get tickets!)  Then we took a wander down the Champs Elysees and got some lunch from a sandwich bar and sat down on a park bench. I decided to go have a lie down on the grass cos it was so hot…  it wasn’t until I got up 10mins later and went back to sit with Mum and Vicky that I learnt there had been a sicko dude lying just metres away “giving himself a wee treat” if you know what I mean! In the middle of the day in broad daylight! Talk about disgusting… That was enough for me so I headed back up the river on the Batobus and walked to the apartment while Mum and Vicky went to the Louvre.

Day Five was the day John and Hayley left at 8am heading to Londonfor the next leg on their trip –  Hong Kong, before heading back home…. and it was the day I finally got a handbag from Paris! Vicky, Mum and I went shopping in the morning before the shuttle was due to pick us up at 1.30 and got ourselves some presents. I got two handbags – one gorgeous Marilyn-inspired one and another purple leather one with flower detail. LOVE THEM! We got back to the apartment just in time to chow down on the last of our wine, cheese and delicious bread before the shuttle arrived to whisk us away back to the airport and UK…. 28deg to 16deg in under 2 hours haha. Brilliant!

All in all a great city break… but I never thought my first European trip would include damn near all of my family from NZ!

xx